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Retribution
The story begins with the Illusive Man aboard his secret space station, orbiting a star that is near the end of its life. The Illusive Man receives a transmission from Kai Leng, Cerberus' top "wet-work" agent. In the transmission, Leng details how he located Paul Grayson, a former Cerberus Operative who betrayed them three years ago during the events of Ascension, on the lawless Omega space station in the Terminus Systems. The Illusive Man is pleased by the news and tells Leng to capture Grayson alive, for he needs human subjects for his investigation into Reaper technology recovered from the Collector Base. Grayson is currently working for Aria, the so-called "pirate queen" of Omega. He along with his batarian partner Sanak, and an asari named Liselle, are at a warehouse completing a job given to them by Aria. They take out their turian targets quickly, who are part of a gang on Omega called the Talons, who have recently not been paying Aria her cut from their drug dealing operation. They snatch the large quantity of red sand, a potent drug that gives humans a very large high, from the Talon warehouse and leave. They stash the red sand at Grayson's apartment, since they do not want to bring it into the Afterlife Club. Sanak and Liselle leave his apartment with Grayson staying behind momentarily, stating he will catch up to them soon. He opens up a comm channel with Kahlee Sanders, who is currently at the Jon Grissom Academy for the Ascension Project, and asks her how everything is going with his daughter, which he did about once a month. She is glad to talk to him again but slightly put on edge from his sloppy appearance, since it had changed so much since their last talk. Grayson is also put on edge by the conversation, though it is revealed that he is always on edge after their calls. After their call ended, Grayson is tempted by all the red sand in his apartment, but fought the urge, saying repeatedly to himself that he had been clean for years for his daughter's sake. He leaves his apartment and heads over to Afterlife, where he meets up with Aria as she is scolding the Talons for not paying her and saying that taking out their warehouse was only retribution. She 'negotiated' an increase in the required cut she would receive from their drug dealing. The Talons grudgingly accepted her new terms and left. The Talons are not the only problem Grayson has to deal with on Omega though, as Kai Leng has been watching him for days, and has planned out a kidnap attempt. Seeing Grayson leave Afterlife alone sets his plan into motion – he and five other Cerberus operatives begin their strike. They manage to get into Grayson's apartment complex under the guise of going to Grayson's birthday party, even bringing presents along. Each of them brings a concealed tranquilliser gun, since killing Grayson was not part of the plan. However, unknown to them, Grayson had invited Liselle over to his apartment since he was too tempted by the red sand, and needs to 'replace one addiction with another' - as he and Liselle have been sleeping together for some time. The Cerberus operatives hack the door, and assault his apartment. After a struggle ensues, leaving one of the Cerberus operatives dead and both Grayson and Liselle knocked out by stun darts, Leng enthusiastically finishes off Liselle with his knife by cutting her throat. They haul Grayson out of his apartment, kill the guards outside the apartment complex, and depart Omega, leaving little evidence behind. Kahlee soon receives a second message from Grayson marked as urgent. The message has a pre-recording of Grayson saying that if she's listening to this, that he must have been captured by Cerberus. Grayson had sent her this message, along with wiping his computer terminal clean of data, in the few seconds he had before Cerberus knocked him out and dragged him off. The message contains an attachment, which had all of the information Grayson had on Cerberus. Not knowing who she can trust with this data, or if her life was in danger from Cerberus, she turns to David Anderson for help. They put together a meeting on the Citadel, both making sure they weren't followed. They decide they cannot go to the Alliance for help due to undercover Cerberus agents being among the Alliance's ranks. The only viable option they come up with is to ask the turians for help, since Anderson had gotten to know Ambassador Orinia through his recent political negotiations. When Grayson wakes up, he is strapped hopelessly to an operating chair, with even his mouth bolted down to prevent him from speaking. The Illusive Man is standing near him, and explains what he is about to endure. He reveals that the Reaper technology involves self-replicating nanites and particle entanglement. The nanites would multiply exponentially, quickly taking over his nervous system and eventually spread throughout his entire body. The Illusive Man gives the signal to start, and Grayson's body goes completely limp from electrocution, a way to reduce any attempt from Grayson to move. Cerberus injects tubes directly into his skull and release the nanites, prompting the Illusive Man to say that Grayson should no longer be considered human. Grayson wakes up some time later in what resembles a jail cell, only to quickly feel hungry and thirsty from what could have been days of sleep. He rapidly drinks the water that had been placed in his cell, and then promptly ate the food that was also supplied to him. During the course of time, Grayson started to experience the beginning phases of the indoctrination, starting with subtle whispers he couldn't understand. The Illusive Man is standing in a room above his cell, watching him through a one-way window. He comments to the scientists that Grayson must be resisting the Reapers' influence and that they needed to sap his willpower. Leng brings up that he had recovered red sand from Grayson's apartment, and that he could inject him with it so the Reapers could control him more easily. The Illusive Man agrees, and sends Leng to carry out his proposal. Leng opens the jail cell door, quickly overpowers Grayson, and injects him with liquid red sand, a more concentrated dosage than dust form. Sometime after this a red sand dispenser was placed into Grayson himself as a means to continually regulate amounts of the drug inside him. When Grayson awakens, the Reapers start controlling his body for him, leaving Grayson hardly able to move his own leg. The Illusive Man inspects the progress and tells his staff to put Grayson down in 3 days, as he may become too dangerous afterwards. Rather ironically, not long after this, the turian squad sent to take out the space station arrived. They, along with several other teams, were sent to take out all the listed facilities that Grayson had sent Kahlee in his final message. Anderson and Kahlee had convinced the turians to help them take out Cerberus, since neither party liked having them around. The three turian frigates docked with the station, allowing the infiltration teams to enter. The Illusive Man awoke to the alarms and put on his Liberator Armor, cursing how he had not been engaged in active combat for around thirty years. He, along with two of his guards, tried to terminate Grayson, but ran into six turian soldiers in the hallway. They managed to kill one of the turians, but a grenade exploded near their position killing the two guards. Alone, the Illusive Man was determined not to be taken alive and braced for combat, only to realize the other five turians lay dead. They had been surprised by Leng from behind and swiftly killed at point blank range by his superior combat capabilities. The Illusive Man and Leng abandoned the station, with the Illusive Man on edge over letting the Reaper controlled Grayson live. As soon as the turians secured the station, they began looking for prisoners, as requested by Kahlee. They only found one. The Reapers, using Grayson as a puppet, persuaded the turians that he had been experimented on with red sand and that they should help him. They agreed, and brought him aboard their shuttle. As per their reputation, the Reapers attacked and killed all the turians aboard the shuttle. Although the Reapers had enhanced Grayson's body to better suit their purposes, he still sustained damage from the attack. Grayson felt like a prisoner in his own mind as he watched the Reapers use him to pile all the bodies up and eject them into space through the airlock. The Reapers then changed the shuttle's destination and forced Grayson to sleep, so that they could repair his body's various injuries. Anderson and Kahlee became worried about not only their safety, since they had hit Cerberus hard, but also for Grayson. The turian shuttle had reported rescuing a prisoner, and sent in the retina scan, revealing that Grayson had indeed been on board. However, that shuttle never reported back. Orinia saw Grayson as a traitor, prompting Kahlee to defend him. Kahlee persuaded her to let her go to the station and find out what happened. Kahlee, along with Anderson and turian escorts, departed to the former Cerberus station. They found various heavily encrypted files detailing their research into Reaper technology and their experiments on Grayson. However, the Illusive Man had not thrown in the towel. He persuaded Aria to help him take out Grayson, which was only possible since Aria believed Grayson betrayed her when he left Omega. Aria swiftly sent her forces to the former Cerberus station. They quickly took about all resistance posed by the turians aboard, and took Kahlee and Anderson alive. The plan was simple, use Kahlee as bait to lure Grayson. After sending a fake distress call from Kahlee, they set up their trap. The Reapers took the bait, much to the dismay of Grayson who did not want to see Kahlee harmed. Soon after arriving, the Reapers began to sort through Grayson's memories of Kahlee for anything useful they could find. They took interest in the Ascension project, seeing potential in the biotic capabilities of the students. After finding Kahlee, the Reapers quickly figured out it was a trap, and amazingly killed many of the would-be assassins. They promptly made Grayson escape Omega after dealing with Aria's reinforcements. The Reapers' avatar had survived the trap, and without delay, had him plot a course to Grissom Academy. Leng witnessed Grayson's escape and knew that he would need help in order to bring him down. He overheard Kahlee and Anderson, who had both survived the encounter, and offered them a ride off of Omega. He claimed they had mutual goals, yet both of them refused to help Cerberus, and a fight ensued. Leng easily defeated both of them, and offered them a ride a second time, tempting them with a lie that Cerberus could reverse what happened to Grayson. Taking the bait, they both agree and go with him. However, when confronted with the guards at the shuttle bay, Anderson quickly threw Kahlee into one of them, then stole his taser. He used the taser on Leng, then surrendered to the guards. He persuaded the guards to let him take Leng's limp body, stating that Leng was with Cerberus and would be interrogated accordingly. Anderson and Kahlee entered Leng's shuttle and took off. They bound Leng's body to the copilot chair with rope from the shuttle's medkit as a precaution, as they set off to the Citadel. Sanders and Anderson are in a discussion when Anderson states that he noticed Kai Leng has awoken, during their discussions they realize where Grayson is heading, to the Jon Grissom Academy where the Ascension Project is being carried out, they quickly change their course and head straight there. Grayson arrived at Grissom Academy, convincing the docking officials that he was there on invitation from Kahlee. Now docked with the station, the only obstacle left was Grayson's Reaper-altered body, which would have alarmed the guards and prevented him from getting past the airlock. Using a blanket as a cloak, Grayson boarded the station and immediately killed the guards, then made his way towards the lab. Once there, Grayson hacked the terminal and started transmitting Academy data to the Reaper fleet. Meanwhile, Anderson and Sanders entered the Academy, leaving Kai Leng aboard the ship. The team split up, with Sanders going to find the guards and evacuate all of her students while Anderson headed straight for the labs. Unattended Kai Leng managed to set himself free and followed his captors into Academy. Inside the Academy, he found one of Sanders' students, Nick Donahue, who knew very little about the current situation. With a bit of deceit, Leng managed to secure Nick's biotic help 'to take kidnappers out'. While wandering through Academy halls, they all faced their common foe in turns, none of them managing to get the upper hand. Reaper-Grayson once again proved hard to kill, as he severely crippled Anderson, tried to indoctrinate Sanders, and critically wounded Nick. It was the combined effort that finally took the avatar down, with Anderson landing a couple of shotgun shots and Leng finishing the job with a pistol. Nick's severe wounds prevented Anderson from simply taking Kai Leng as a prisoner; Leng refused to apply pressure to Nick's wounds stating that Anderson must choose between imprisoning him and saving Nick. Ever the soldier, Anderson chose the third option and the inevitable shootout between Anderson and Kai Leng was resolved when Anderson decided to help Sanders, but not before immobilizing Leng with a pistol shot to each leg. Although crippled, Leng still managed to escape the Academy and contact the Illusive Man, the Cerberus leader grudgingly accepting the resolution of this catastrophe. Eventually, everyone in Grissom Academy recovered, including Nick and Anderson. Anderson declared his intent to study Grayson's remains, and asked Sanders to join his research team. Finally, Sanders and Anderson shared a kiss. The Illusive Man decided that Cerberus may yet profit from Anderson's independent research into Reapers. But he was not about to give up his own research efforts. To secure a deal with Aria he payed her a hefty sum for databanks she recovered from his overrun station, at the same time allowing her to keep her own copies. For he knew that the Reapers will be coming – the more groups to study them, the better.